


Thank You for Teaching Me How to Love

by PusillanimousBitch1138



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: The Next Generation (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Death, Death of a loved one, F/M, Grief, Loss, Sad, data cries, emotion chip data, emotion chip!data, grieving data
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 20:09:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20315308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PusillanimousBitch1138/pseuds/PusillanimousBitch1138
Summary: Data grieves the death of his wife.





	Thank You for Teaching Me How to Love

The Enterprise bridge crew and some visiting friends, including Chief O’Brian and Keiko, were gathered around the urn pod, listening to Captain Picard talk about her accomplishments: top 5% of her class in Starfleet, an ingenious engineer, a multi-world-renowned vocalist, the list went on and on. A few feet away, one of her songs was playing on an old gramophone. She had frequently praised the ancient machine for the “depth” it gave certain kinds of music. This particular song she had sung in an imitation of a famous French singer of the 1940s, a song called “La Vie en Rose.” More than a few people were crying, Deanna had had to excuse herself before the service had even begun because the wealth of grief and sorrow surrounding her had begun to affect her deeper than she realized.

Picard finished his speech as the song came to an end, wiping his eyes as he said, “Vikara Nellenryll will be more than missed. Her absence will affect us all in a more profound way than some of us have ever experienced.” With this, he walked over to Data who hadn’t moved a single inch since they had arrived at the forest. He put his hand on the android’s arm and squeezed it firmly, drawing his attention. “Data, my old friend, we are all here for you in this hour of need.”

Data nodded slightly, giving a weak smile that lasted .13 seconds. Picard turned back to the urn and was the first to reach down, dropping a small handful of wildflower seeds onto the soil around it. Everyone else followed suit, said their goodbyes, and walked away, not a single dry eye among them. Geordi waited until it was just him and Data left before he turned to his friend. “Data, are you alright?”

Data turned his head toward Geordi, his face void of all emotion. He went to open his mouth but no words came. He tried again and managed to let out a quiet, “I have… I have no words for what I’m feeling. All I can say with certainty is that…no. I am not alright.” And it was true. Data wished with all his might that he hadn’t damaged his emotion chip. He wanted nothing more than to turn this feeling off and to never let it come back on. But for now, he was unable to deactivate it. He could not avoid this feeling, this hopelessness, this despair.

Geordi nodded, swallowing down a lump of tears and he hugged the android tightly for a few moments. He pulled back and patted his arm. “I’ll leave you alone to…say your goodbyes.” He bent down and put his handful of seeds around the pod. As he left, he put his hand on Data’s shoulder for a second again, and then continued on his way.

Data stood rigid still until Geordi’s footsteps were approximately 74.43 feet away and then all strength he had failed him. He sank to his knees in the dirt, dropping the seeds he had been clutching in his hand. He let out a choked sob, sinking back onto his ankles. Artificial tears streamed down his face as his entire body shook with grief. The raging ball of searing heat in his stomach rising up to his throat and radiating down to his palms.

“V-Vikara…My Vik. I can’t—I don’t—How can I?” Even without the necessity of breathing, Data could not help the shuddering intake of air into his chest cavity. He tried to speak again but all that his vocal processor could produce was a strangled cry and he dug his nails into the dirt.

He stayed like that for a few hours until he managed to get his crying under control. His voice was weak and hollow when he managed to finally speak again. “I knew this day would come, but how could I have known it would come…so soon?” He wiped his eyes, staring desolately at the pod. “I hope you find this to be an appropriate means of…” he swallowed the word ‘disposal’ and left the sentence unfinished, unable to vocalize the idea of departing with her body, the body he had spent so many nights lying beside, watching, studying, worshipping. “I know how fond you a…were” he swallowed hard, looking up into the sky to blink away a fresh wave of tears, “of the forests. And this planet has no species even remotely resembling arachnids, which I know you hate…d. Why do I keep doing that? I know that you are…gone… but I can’t, as they say, ‘wrap my head around’ the idea of you being…” He couldn’t say it. He just could not bring the word “dead” to his lips. The pain coursed through his body again and he lost control. For another hour, he could do nothing but sob.

As he settled down, he contemplated the way other species handled death. Klingons released battle cries when one of their own died. Multiple species throw parties to celebrate the lives of their loved ones. Some species preserve their loved ones, some even go so far as to live with the corpses for a while. In some ancient cultures, lovers would throw themselves on the funeral pyres of their lost lovers. Data couldn’t help the bitterness in the back of his mind that cynically wished she hadn’t been terrified of fire so there could be a pyre to throw himself upon.

Instead, he moved so that he was sitting, staring at the picture of her that had been engraved upon the simple headstone they had prepared. It was a picture that Deanna had taken at a party. It had been one hell of a party, too. Someone had gotten their hands on Guinan’s stash of real alcohol, not synthehol, and several of the attendees had taken it a bit too far, Vikara included. In this particular picture, her freckled cheeks were flushed with drink, her curly brown hair was wild owing to the fact that she had broken her hair tie, her gingerbread eyes were lined in flawless eyeliner, her nose ring sparkled from the flash, her painted rosy lips were stretched over a wide smile. Mid-laughter, he thought. She was leaning over him, one arm draped across his shoulders, her other wrapped around his own. He was looking up at her with a bewildered expression. She had caught him by surprise, having just left a raucous discussion with a coworker. He smiled as he remembered that night. That had been the first night she had told him she loved him, but he never mentioned this to her in case it had just been the alcohol. It had taken her another three weeks to say it again, sober this tiem. He had made an authentic Italian dinner for her, spaghetti and an entire loaf of garlic bread. (Garlic is…was Vikara’s favorite food, as she very frequently said.) She had taken his hand after she finished eating and she smiled at him over the candles, blushing. “Data, there’s, I mean, I have something to… Well, Data I love you,” she stuttered out. He had risen from his seat and walked around the table to her. He took her in his arms and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. “I love you, too, Vikara,” he had breathed.

The picture on the headstone changed to a picture of their wedding day. He let out a soft chuckle, a sad smile coming to his lips. She had worn a green dress, off-the-shoulders with floor-length cut sleeves. She said it was an almost exact replica of the green dress worn by a Marilyn Monroe in the later-mid 20th century, “except I made the underside mulberry instead of red,” she had said. She had been breathtaking. Her bouquet was a mixture of Betazed and Thorian wildflowers. Her hair had been braided in one long, thick wave with those same flowers weaved into it. She wore only eyeliner, and very subtly so, but somehow she was glowing. He had worn his usual formal Starfleet clothing, but she had said he “never looked more handsome.” Picard had officiated the wedding, which was held outdoors on Risa 7, on a hill overlooking the ocean at sunset. The way the fiery sunset danced in her eyes and along her skin, she looked absolutely incorporeal. The picture on the tombstone was of their kiss. He had bent her into a low dip, and the way the sun shone behind them, it was though the sky itself had been celebrating their union.

There were eight other pictures that cycled through on the tombstone: her Starfleet graduation picture, a baby picture with her two older siblings, a picture of her performing at a Bajoran music hall, a picture of her with the bridge crew, another of the same setting but with everyone making funny expressions (she had pulled her cheeks apart and gone cross eyed, he was in the middle of asking Picard what expressions were considered “funny,”) a picture of her lounging on a tropical beach in the holodeck, a picture of her with her parents—a human father and a female Trill who had married her father when she was 6 months old, and a picture of her sitting on the floor of their quarters, surrounded by the innards of a broken replicator she had been fighting with. He had taken the beach picture and the picture with the replicator himself. He had hundreds of pictures of her, most of them candid, that he had collected in their six years together. The smile faded from his lips as he realized that was basically all he had left of her, of his wife, of the woman who taught him love.

He sat with her urn a while longer before he lowered it into the ground. He sprinkled growth activator over the seeds and her urn and stood back. Betazed and Thorian wildflowers rose from the ground, surrounding the sprouting weeping willow to which her urn contained the seed and would nourish for the next six months.

He leaned down and picked one of the flowers, a Thorian rose, and tucked it into the lapel of his coat to press later. The Thorian rose had been her favorite flower. He would put it on his desk alongside the picture of her draped across him at the party.

He plugged a chip into the side of the tombstone and music began to play, a mixture of violin pieces which he performed, some vocal pieces she performed, and some pieces they performed together for the Enterprise crew on occasion. The tombstone was solar-powered, so as long as this planet orbited a sun, her voice would grace this forest.

He stood at the edge of her burial plot and tears rose to his eyes once again.

“Vikara, my love, it is time for me to leave now.” He wiped his eyes and clenched his fists once or twice in an attempt to make the pain go away. “I… I will cherish you in my heart, always. I will never forget you, because as you know I cannot forget. But I will miss you with every fiber of my being.” He turned to leave but stopped. He turned his upper body to look down at the budding tree. “Thank you. Thank you for teaching me how to love.” And then he was gone.


End file.
